Hello everyone. It is "golden week" here in China. Everyone has the entire week off to celebrate National Day, October 1st, the day Mao ZeDong and the People's Liberation Army liberated China. We took a small two day vacation to a beautiful mountain region called Mo Gan Shan （山 this is the character for "shan" which means mountain). It was a gorgeous get-away with bamboo forests. Not knowing what we were getting into, we had all three kids make a 30 minute hike up mountain stairs -- they all made it and have become quite the troupers. They usually melt down after the fact (in the evening) which is more convenient! We stayed in an old fashioned farm house in a very small mountain village. It was a bit like a Chinese version of Little House on the Prarie. I'll post photos of the cabin in the entry. Mr. Zhu drove us there and he stayed with us the whole time -- three parents for three children works out great!
Mo Gan Shan was the location where the foreigners and wealthy Chinese in Shanghai would escape the summer heat. There is a villa at the very top of the mountain where Chiang Kai Shek stayed with his wife. We saw it briefly and saw the meeting room where they discussed the importance of introducing "paper money." That paper money had a short life, given that a year after it was introduced, the communists came to power.
We discovered that Jeff's Chinese surname (Jiang) is the same character as Chiang Kai Shek (Chiang is actually Jiang in Chinese).
The highlight of the trip for me was when we went hiking on forest path in search of "queer rock." We gave up on finding the rock, as it was getting dark and we got side tracked by finding a little restaurant on the mountain side in the middle of tea fields. We took all kids and hike down a quite steep incline and made it to the Pagoda just in time for the sunset. We had some tea that was grown right there and bought some to bring home. Mr. Zhu, in his wisdom, asked if there was a quicker way back, and we walked out via road and got back to the car, just as it was getting dark.
Jeff and I were pleasantly surprised to have such a successful vacation with the kids. They are seeming quite comfortable in their new surroundings and Sun and Qi talk constantly about school, comparing notes. Jin said that Mandarin is his favorite class and can already write a few characters. His best one is 坐 (zuo which means "sit."). After consulting with a million people, I finally picked out a Chinese name for myself. It is Liu Li Fei (柳 丽 菲). "Liu" means is from the word for weeping willow tree -- which I choose because they are everywhere here, I love them, and they remind me of home. "Li" means beauty (but also was the sound I needed :-) and fei doesn't really have much meaning. So I will be referred to at work as Liu Laoshi which means "Teacher Liu." Only medical doctors over here get to me Daifu! Shucks!
More later. Got to read Qi Qi a Dora book and get out of bed! Take care.
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